Saving species

One in eight of the world’s bird species is globally threatened, and the fortunes of some 200 Critically Endangered species are now so perilous that they are at risk of imminent extinction. BirdLife aims to improve the conservation status of all the world's birds, and hence species are often the starting point for our scientific research.

The BirdLife Secretariat is the Red List Authority for birds on the IUCN Red List, coordinating the process of evaluating all of the world’s c.10,000 bird species against the Red List categories and criteria in order to assess their extinction risk.

Video story: step into a desert island wilderness, where conservation work for turtles and birds is delivering heartening, long lasting, results: “Now the fishermen work with us, they help us count the birds instead of killing them. They even adopt turtle nests. It is a big, big change.”

Deforestation since the turn of the century has driven at least 500 species of mammals, birds and amphibians closer to extinction, according to a new scientific study published in Conservation Biology journal.